More police, more tickets – more pain
Christopher Curtis writes about what’s likely to happen if Montreal indeed gets 450 more police – giving it the highest per‑capita police representation in Canada – yet the court system is already heavily bogged down with minor crimes. Add more police and they have to have something to do in a town with relatively low serious crime (we had our 24th homicide of the year Friday) so vulnerable people are likely to find themselves more criminalized with more cops around.
Tim S. 21:35 on 2022-09-16 Permalink
I guess better traffic enforcement is just out of the question.
Ephraim 03:44 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
Why are we using police for traffic enforcement? Have you seen a cop actually happy to WRITE a ticket? Besides, when they had out tickets, they will be asked why they are handing out tickets to THIS particular type of vehicle and not THAT particular type of vehicle. When what needs to happen is going after the most egregious violations… which are so often just allowed to happen.
Kate 09:13 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
Ephraim, we use police for traffic enforcement because the Brotherhood doesn’t want its members to lose those sweet, easily earned overtime hours.
Kevin 10:09 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
Who besides a cop is allowed to stop a driver and hand out a ticket?
Just having a cop car driving around automatically slows down other drivers…
Now having cops or cadets manning stop lights in a construction area, that’s a waste of time and money
Ephraim 13:16 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
It’s a job that should be almost automated. The policeman should need to photograph your plate, scan your driver’s licence, scan your car registration and enter the codes for the transgression. A GPS coordinate should print along with the ticket. And bicycle drivers over the age of 16 should have to have a licence that could be scanned as well. The only exception should be pedestrians, who don’t really use the street, but the sidewalk… and children, who are entitled to use the sidewalk for their bicycles.
The brotherhood wants a lot of things, including respect. All of which should be earned, not expected.
We need enforcement and solving of crimes…. neither of which the brotherhood is actually doing. But then, we can’t expect them to actually solve crimes… the solve rate is pitifully low. Not to mention that asking most police to solve a crime that involves a computer is equivalent to asking a 90 year old for tech support.
Ephraim 13:18 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
But, to make the point, at the moment a speeding ticket is nothing more than simply a random occurrence. There is no rhyme or reason for why you get a speeding ticket in Montreal… just some magic quota and someone who decides it should be enforced right there, right now. Rather than data based where accidents occur, because well… they don’t even have the data on where accidents occur because we don’t have to register an accident.
Kate 15:09 on 2022-09-17 Permalink
Ephraim, there are some records about accidents, or at least about the ones that cause injury and fatality. I know this because I once interviewed Patrick Morency of the public health department, who told me about it. They do know where accident hot spots are, but there’s always been such pressure on the idea of keeping motor traffic moving at the expense of everything else, that it’s been difficult to institute traffic calming measures in many of the worst spots.
Ephraim 13:00 on 2022-09-18 Permalink
That’s “sort of” true. But there are plenty of changes that haven’t been tried. For example dividers that do no real damage around entries to the highway so that cars don’t “push” their way in and entry is orderly. Changers to require jug handles in some places where left hand turns should not be allowed. For example, they moved the left hand turn on Berri at Viger and now it’s at de la Gauchetiere. But it didn’t work at Viger because they never installed a clear way to keep people from being in the right lanes and FORCED to flow with the traffic. It still doesn’t work at de la Gauchetiere, but at least you don’t have the left turn lane and then two lanes that move left as they go across the intersection. We don’t have enough control lanes in Montreal. A lane that has no continuation and moves to the right or left to signal to people that a lane disappears.
We also need to fix pedestrian lights to turn red when you won’t have enough time to cross, when they turn red from green with no intermediate period. And stop bicycles from using pedestrian crosswalks as a way to turn to avoid traffic lights. Bicycles should be strictly kept out of pedestrian crossings, required to be to the right or left of them. And pedestrian crosswalks should be moved in about 50cm from the corners, moving the stop line further in, so that cyclists would have difficulty using/being in them at all.